 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Perry v. State12/10/1999
James Edward Perry v. State of Maryland
No. 23, Sept. Term, 1999
Wiretap law: (1) no co-conspirator exception; person does not lose right to seek suppression of telephone conversation unlawfully intercepted and taped by co-conspirator.
(2) Communication intercepted and taped in violation of wiretap law is suppressible even if interception was not willful.
(3) Motion to suppress intercepted communication must be made before or when evidence is offered.
Post-Conviction
View that prejudice under Strickland v. Washington can never occur when reliable, but inadmissible, evidence is wrongfully admitted rejected both under Sixth Amendment and, independently, under Maryland Declaration of Rights, Article 21.
In the Circuit Court for Montgomery County Case No. 72050
Rodowsky, Cathell, and Karwacki, JJ., Dissent
Appellant, James Perry, was convicted by a jury in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County of three counts of premeditated murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder. For the three murders, Perry was sentenced to death. A separate sentence of life imprisonment was imposed for the conspiracy.
The convictions arose from the murders of Mildred Horn, her eight-year-old disabled son, Trevor Horn, and Trevor's nurse, Janice Saunders. The murders occurred in Mildred Horn's home in Rockville, in the early morning hours of March 3, 1993. Ms. Horn and Ms. Saunders were shot in the head; Trevor died of asphyxia - his air supply had been cut off by suffocation. The State's evidence, the sufficiency of which has never been challenged by Perry, was that Perry was a hired killer, that he committed the murders as part of a conspiracy with Lawrence Horn, Mildred's former husband and Trevor's father, and that Lawrence Horn's motive in arranging for the murders was to collect approximately $1 million from a trust that had been established for Trevor from the proceeds of a personal injury claim. Lawrence Horn was tried separately and convicted for his role in the matter.
In his direct appeal from the three convictions and sentence of death, Perry raised a number of issues, all but one of which we rejected on the merits. Perry v. State, 344 Md. 204, 686 A.2d 274, cert. denied, 520 U.S.1146, 117 S. Ct. 1318, 137 L. Ed. 2d 480 (1997). The one issue that we did not address but left for further development in a post-conviction proceeding concerned the admission into evidence of a 22-second taped telephone conversation between Perry and Horn and testimony identifying the voices on that tape. Upon denial of relief by the Supreme Court, Perry filed a petition for post-conviction relief in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County. He raised several issues but focused principally on questions arising from the admission of the tape-recorded conversation: whether admission of the recording and testimony concerning it was error; whether, if error, the error was harmless under the test enunciated in Dorsey v. State, 276 Md. 638, 350 A.2d 665 (1976); and whether, if Perry's complaint about the admission of that evidence is held to have been waived because of the lack of a timely objection, counsel's failure to make such an objection amounts to a Constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel under the two-prong test established in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S. Ct. 2052, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674 (1984). The post-conviction court denied relief, and we granted Perry's application for leave to appeal. Although Perry presses several complaints in his petition, we need address only those relating to the 22-second tape recording.
BACKGROUND
A. The Trial
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 Maryland Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|